Digging Deep

I'm currently reading Brene Brown's book The Gifts of Imperfection. I really only just started it today. In the introduction of the book she talks about digging deep. You know...those moments when you have stuff to get done but you're just too tired or overwhelmed to do it but you find a way to dig deep and make it happen.

It's funny that I read this part of the book today. It's funny that the example she gave was spot on to what I was going through today. She talks about how she used to dig deep, push hard and suck it up. But since she was interested in living her life whole heartedly she wanted to find another approach to digging deep. In her research she found that people who live wholeheartedly dig deep by doing something restorative rather than forcing themselves to push through the task at hand.

The example she gave was that one day she was sitting at her computer and instead of working she was playing around on the internet. I'm sure we all do it...it's like a constant loop of facebook, pinterest, email, blogs and repeat. For her it wasn't relaxing or productive. So she decided to try the new way of digging deep and told herself she needed to do something that was deliberately relaxing. She needed to find something inspiring to do rather than something that sucked the life out of her. Once she made that decision she needed to get up and do it. She turned off her computer and reminded herself to be self compassionate and then watched a movie. She said it was exactly what she needed.

Today I was sitting at my desk avoiding the fact that I have some pictures that need to be edited before the end of the week. I was sitting there drinking my coffee, checking Facebook, staring out my window, day dreaming, reading blogs, listening to the same song over and over again, checking emails...etc. etc. Nothing productive. And none of it was exceptionally inspiring either. It was literally a waste of time and I was feeling more and more sluggish as the time went by. I eventually decided to just get up from my desk and do some reading. It made me feel anxious because I always tend to choose doing something else over sucking it up and doing what I need to do when I'm having a day like this. In my mind, that sounds terrible. You probably wonder how I ever get anything done.

I started reading but was having trouble focusing because really all I wanted to do was lay in my bed and either sleep or day dream about something wonderful. I kept reading though and I got to this part about digging deep. I began to wonder. You would think that I might be happy to know that I've doing well all these years...unknowingly living a wholehearted life maybe? Or is what I do just plain laziness and the result of having very little discipline?

I don't know. I don't really feel good about normally choosing to do something I want to do over work. Even though in general what I choose to do is something that can be considered restorative for me. I think of course now I'll be more mindful of when it's happening. I'll try to really make sure I'm doing something relaxing rather than mindlessly choosing something to do. I worry about how I usually end up feeling bad about myself when I choose not to work. Is this something that I should accept about myself and be happy about as long as I do it in a way where I'm more self aware?

How do you dig deep? Do you push through or do you do something similar to what Brene Brown talks about? And with whichever approach you take, how does it make you feel afterwards?

♥